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I'm sorry, but your statements are non sensical. Hell isn't really a punishment because we deserve worse than hell? Just because one deserves a worse punishment than hell doesn't mean hell isn't a punishment, since the purpose of hell is specifically designed to inflict pain.

Sorry about the miscommunication. My disagreement was not with "punishment." Yes hell is a punishment. My disagreement was with "appropriate punishment." Appropriate punishment would be immediate punishment. Because of the good things that happen to bad people those people do not receive an appropriate punishment. They are recipients of grace and mercy from God.

"You know, with Hitler, the more I learn about that guy, the more I don't care for him."

Okay.. it's important to know that my belief and my conception of God came about as I was trying to answer very personal questions. As a result, my understandings are also very personal, and maybe not terribly helpful to others.

I think essentially, I forget the word, that everything is God.. there's nothing separate from anything fundamentally. Also, though, God is more than everything we have 'access' to as people. So, Evil is equally a part of God as Good is. God is not the God of everything good, God is the God of existence which encompasses matter and other rarer forms of manifestation, like ideas, and ideals. So.. we are limited to perception of differentiations in our normal state, and God's existence extends beyond that. All that 'who created God?' jazz doesn't register with me at all, because what's important is that God 'meta-created' existance and nonexistance. This is easy to say, but there is nothing to logically discuss about it, it's a waste of time.

So what is Evil, and what is a demon? Well, Evil is actually easily explainable when you understand that we are God also. Evil is really an effect of disharmony having to do with our decisions, Good is harmony, neither of which is not God. A demon is just Evil personified. This probably can happen a lot of ways, we tend to personify things in order to interact with them. I don't rule out the idea of external manifestations of Evil, but to me.. some sort of supernatural occurance is not any different than just somebody being a bad person. And neither is some sort of supernatural good force any different than somebody being a good person.

Cheers man, that's interesting, different to what I thought you were talking about and different from what I believe.

I do think that there is reciprocity between God and his creation, its the purpose we serve, animals too, even evolution or similar processes. Although I think that's different from what you're describing here which seems more like pantheism, sorry if its not, I'm not trying to label you or anything like that.

When I was listening to some of the discoveries about dark matter on the radio today it seemed like evil, at least like the evil in The Fith Element or The Never Ending Story. In some ways its a little like the version of God in PKD's books whose consciousness IS reality and the universe, when God experiences forgetfulness reality winks out of existence. PKD manages an amazing fusion of science fiction and jewish mysticism.

All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.
Chapter IV, p. 448. - Adam Smith, Book 3, The Wealth of Nations

whether or not you credit psychoanalysis itself, the fact remains that we all must, to the greatest extent possible, understand one another's minds as our own; the very survival of humanity has always depended on it. - Open Culture

Sorry about the miscommunication. My disagreement was not with "punishment." Yes hell is a punishment. My disagreement was with "appropriate punishment." Appropriate punishment would be immediate punishment. Because of the good things that happen to bad people those people do not receive an appropriate punishment. They are recipients of grace and mercy from God.

Well that's a little like discussions I've had about God's judgement, its not simply just but is described as being seen to be just too, which means that when it appears like wicked people prosper or succeed or escape consequences it will either be seen ultimately to have been just that they did or they will be seen to be punished by God eventually rather than immediately.

All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.
Chapter IV, p. 448. - Adam Smith, Book 3, The Wealth of Nations

whether or not you credit psychoanalysis itself, the fact remains that we all must, to the greatest extent possible, understand one another's minds as our own; the very survival of humanity has always depended on it. - Open Culture

Cheers man, that's interesting, different to what I thought you were talking about and different from what I believe.

I do think that there is reciprocity between God and his creation, its the purpose we serve, animals too, even evolution or similar processes. Although I think that's different from what you're describing here which seems more like pantheism, sorry if its not, I'm not trying to label you or anything like that.

When I was listening to some of the discoveries about dark matter on the radio today it seemed like evil, at least like the evil in The Fith Element or The Never Ending Story. In some ways its a little like the version of God in PKD's books whose consciousness IS reality and the universe, when God experiences forgetfulness reality winks out of existence. PKD manages an amazing fusion of science fiction and jewish mysticism.

Yeah, I wouldn't say it was pantheism, though the difference is probably pretty subtle. The big problem I have with your conception of the Universe is that somehow God is divorced from responsibility for Evil. This is just shirking when it comes to something that is Omnipotent and Omniscient. And we do have a connection with God, a relationship.. but I don't see how mere puppets, things that aren't also God stuff can have a real relationship with God, as in Christianity.

Yeah, I wouldn't say it was pantheism, though the difference is probably pretty subtle. The big problem I have with your conception of the Universe is that somehow God is divorced from responsibility for Evil. This is just shirking when it comes to something that is Omnipotent and Omniscient. And we do have a connection with God, a relationship.. but I don't see how mere puppets, things that aren't also God stuff can have a real relationship with God, as in Christianity.

Not puppets, the sort of reciprocity which I'm talking about is more radical than that, it corresponds to the various sayings of Jesus and the disciples along the lines of "Ye Shall be Gods", although that is different from pantheism and the "God stuff", so far as I understand this concept or ones like it that I've read about.

The thing about God and evil is interesting. My understanding of evil is that it will never surpass good because it is a corrupted version of the good or degenerate version of the good, if you know what I mean, or more appropriately perhaps what happens when the good is blocked or can not develop as it ought. So there is a kind of dichotomy but the good is what is meant and the evil is the accident or unintended, the good gone wrong. However, while there is a dichotomy there is no equality or equivalence. As simple an example as I could think of would include love vs. obsessive mania, vigilance vs. paranoia, generosity vs. neurotic needs for affection.

So evil is the creations of God fallen into degeneracy, God himself is not degenerate nor can be, he is omniscent and omnipotent but evil exists because the reciprocity between God and man has lead to his becoming less paternalistic and interventionist, its evident not just in the old and new testament but conceptions in all the world religions, it gets mistaken or misconstrued as mankind's emergence from imaginative ignorance attributing less to God as mankind has made other discoveries.

Does evil serve some Godly purpose? Well, of course, it is a challenge and spur to development within the proper channels and with the proper guidance, ie the teachings of the prophets, life and ministry of Jesus, God incarnate, etc.

All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.
Chapter IV, p. 448. - Adam Smith, Book 3, The Wealth of Nations

whether or not you credit psychoanalysis itself, the fact remains that we all must, to the greatest extent possible, understand one another's minds as our own; the very survival of humanity has always depended on it. - Open Culture

Sorry about the miscommunication. My disagreement was not with "punishment." Yes hell is a punishment. My disagreement was with "appropriate punishment." Appropriate punishment would be immediate punishment. Because of the good things that happen to bad people those people do not receive an appropriate punishment. They are recipients of grace and mercy from God.

Why is that? Why is there no immediate punishment for the wicked and no immediate reward for the rightous?

You can claim the God is graceful because he postpones the punishment, but why does he allow for the wicked to continue with their misdeeds against the innocent? Seems like the innocent are getting a raw deal here. I mean you can claim heaven will make it all worthwhile, but why does God delay the reward of heaven, and let's the innocent endure an entire lifetimes of pain? Its not like there is a Super Heaven. Heaven is heaven. Children suffer too, and some of them are too young to realize they will be rewarded in the afterlife for their current surrow. So what's the point?

Please don't say "God works in mysterious ways". I can't just take some 2000 year old book that has been translated and amended hundreds of times, and written by who-the-fuck-knows at its face value. I'd rather rely on my reason. After all, God has given me reason for a reason... and that reason wasn't to throw it out of the window every time I come across some ancient unverifiable text. That would make no sense. My own reason tells me so.

Also, the beef that I have with the various claims of what happens in the afterlife is that nobody can prove it wrong. I can claim all sorts of shit happens in the afterlife, and its not like any dead person will dispute my statements.

Listen to me, baby, you got to understand, you're old enough to learn the makings of a man.